Portrait of an Artist: Mauro Marzari

Our little town has many public spaces for art and culture events. These continue to provide me with opportunities to discover new artists.

During a recent evening walk in the city centre, I came across the poster of an art exhibition by local artists at the Toaldi-Capra Palace and I immediately decided to take a look. Apart from some lovely watercolours, the exhibition had a few collages with mixed materials, which immediately caught my attention. All the exhibits were without titles or names of the artists. Thus, I went to ask information about the artist of the collages and discovered that he was present in the room. This is how I met Mauro Marzari, the "reluctant" artist of those collages.

This post presents my short conversation with him.

Artistic Journey of Mauro Marzari

Mauro is from Piovene Rocchette, a small town located some 7-8 km from Schio. Mauro has retired after a lifetime of working in public administration.

He explained that he was always interested in arts, and he dabbled in oil paintings. However, he decided to be sensible and look for a stable job, and not try to become an artist.

Many years later, when his family responsibilities were done, he decided to go back to his first love, the arts and joined a four years' degree course in arts at an evening course run by the Institute of Arts in Schio, while continuing to work full-time. The course gave him an opportunity to learn and experiment with different painting and sculpture techniques, and discover his own ideas about the kind of art he wanted to create.

The 5 works of Mauro, that I saw in the exhibition, all have a distinct style - they are collages with acrylics and paper. I liked all the 4 works and I think that I can look at them for long time and discover new details. My favourite is the canvass with a predominant blue colour (below).

Becoming an Artist

While talking to him, it came out that he does not feel that he can define himself as an artist, though he loves art and spends a lot of time making art. He feels that artists are persons who have dedicated their lives to the craft and have suffered all the hardships of the life for their art. About himself, he feels that he had a comfortable life and came to art when he was stable and did not have financial and family worries. Thus, he never suffered for his art.

This discussion reminded me of my feelings of being an imposter as an "Indian writer" at the Grinzane Awards in Turin in 2007, which had a focus on Indian writers and I had collaborated with them for inviting some Hindi writers. At that time, I had written a few stories and ran blogs in Hindi, English and Italian, but I did not have a book to my name and for me that was the criteria for being a writer. Now that I have completed my second novel, I feel more comfortable in being called a writer.

In the End

I loved Mauro's works. I hope that he can continue to find joy in his art and continue to develop and explore new areas as an artist.

In the end it does not matter the label we give ourselves or the labels others give us. In this era of attention-hungry influencers and publicity-peddlers, it is good to be humble and insecure, and enjoy what we do without feeling the need to show-off. 

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#arts #artists #schio #palazzotoaldicapra #schio_arts #mauro_marzini

Promoting Inclusion: Photo-Exhibition

Recently Toaldi-Capri palace in Schio had a photo-exhibition of two photographers, Tommaso and Filippo, organised by a local association working for persons with disabilities, called "Against Exclusion - Association ODV".

I visited this exhibition and had a brief talk with one of the photographers, Tommaso Frinzi. I want to share a few impressions from this experience. The images used in this post are all from the exhibition.

Against Exclusion - Association ODV

Let me start with a brief presentation of the organisation behind this initiative. It is based in Schio (VI) in the Veneto region in the north-east of Italy. It started in 1984, by individuals and families wishing to support social inclusion of persons with disabilities. Thus, this year they have completed 40 years.

 It is active in areas such as sports, leisure activities, independent living, leisure, and community-building.

Talking to Tommaso Frinzi

Thirty-three year old Tommaso lives in Magre area of Schio. He discovered his passion for photography about one year ago. Last Christmas, he received a Canon camera and since then, has been doing self-learning about photography through YouTube videos.

He met Filippo, his friend photographer at an event organised by the association and discovered that they both shared the same passion. 

Tommaso loves taking pictures of the nature, animals and birds. When asked to choose one favourite picture among his works, he chose the image of a seagull against the sky with clouds tinged orange by the setting sun. He explained this choice by saying that the flying seagull represents freedom and he likes the orange glow of the image.

He downloads his images on his computer and knows simple post-production, especially the software included in his camera.

Photographs in the Exhibition

I feel that often photographers feel intimidated to take pictures of persons with disabilities, because they are afraid of promoting stereotypes and of being accused of voyeurism.

However, Tommaso and Filippo, have a lot of pictures of other persons with disabilities while they are playing or talking to friends or enjoying themselves. You can feel that for them, these are pictures of their friends, living their lives like everyone else.

They are more unselfconscious in the way they depict disabilities and they are not aiming to give any specific social message or to create awareness about something. I think that this is the strength of their specific point-of-view in their images - letting us enter and see their world, the way they themselves see it. 

They have decided not to label the names of the two photographers on their images, so I am not sure who took which pictures. I can understand the reasons behind this choice, and yet I feel that this denies them the full satisfaction of being artists.

They are both artists, each with his own way of capturing the world through the camera, and saying this explicitly allows each of them to claim a specific space.

Conclusions

Finally, I like the idea of using arts and photography to create awareness about disability issues and persons with disabilities. I like it even more, when the artists and photographers themselves are persons with disabilities and their art expresses their own visions of the world.

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Art Exhibition - Visioni d'Arte

The art exhibition titled Marcopolo Travels - Visioni d'Arte was held at Palazzo Toaldi-Capra in Schio recently. It was curated and organised by Roberto Settin, who represents different artists and organises public exhibitions to sell their works.

This year is the 700th anniversary of the death of Italian merchant-traveller Marco Polo and thus different events have been organised in Italy on the theme of travel and journeys, especially in the Veneto region. It was also the theme of the art-exhibition of Visioni d'Arte.

Roberto Settin and his agency Visioni d'Arte

I had a brief talk with Roberto at the exhibition. He started this agency Visioni d'Arte in Bassano del Grappa during the shut-downs due to the Covid epidemic. He felt that he knew about the artists, the way the art markets work and has the international connections, so he can help artists to have viable strategies for selling their works.

To explain, how he can help artists, he gave the example of understanding the value of the art. He said that sometimes, new artists have unrealistic expectations about the kind of money they can get for their work and he helps them to have more realistic ideas. Often new artists can just manage to cover the cost of their materials and gain a small margin. Having their names and works in an exhibition-catalogue increases the value of their work over time.

To present their art-works in such an event, the artists need to contribute to the costs of organising the exhibition. For an exhibition in a small town like Schio, the costs are much less, compared to exhibitions in big towns like Venice or Milan. At the same time, small towns have lesser visitors and less sales.

Roberto is also an artist. He explained that the orange lion placed outside the exhibition hall was his creation. Roberto can be contacted through his Facebook page.

Art-Works in the Exhibition

The art-works in the exhibition were on different themes and many were not directly about travel, unless we think of travel as flights of fantasy and imagination. I want to briefly mention a few art-works from this exhibition, which I liked.

Let me start with 2 oil paintings using spatula - Rose in black and white by Annalisa Trento and In flight by Bianca Mengotti.

 

Marco Eracli, an artist based in Florence,  had 4 works in the exhibition, using acrylic with mixed techniques, that gives a wonderful texture to his work. Among all of them, I liked most the art-work titled Star-dust. Carlotta Castelletti also used acrylic but she used the wall-paper fabric for her striking work titled Madam.

Antonio Miatto does sculptures and collages. Among his works, I liked his collage titled "The Sea" and the wood-metal sculpture of the fish with a hole, titled "Without a heart". 

I liked the 3 oil-on-canvass paintings - 2 of them by Mara Zanchetta - "Freedom" with its red and black colour scheme and "Hair-curlers" with a feisty looking woman. The third one was "Hathor" by Monia Sansa.

The mixed material work by Cristiano Sandonà, uses some synthetic resin materials mixed with acrylic on glass - his work titled "For You" was simple and evocative. I also liked the mixed material work with wood and other recovered materials titled "Diversity is not the enemy" by Mattia Tegon.

Conclusions

I feel that art is very subjective, even more so, when the artists vary so much in their subjects, techniques and materials. Thus, deciding awards or who is the best, does not make sense to me.

Another aspect is liking some art-work at an intellectual level. It is another thing to decide which art-work I would like in my room, so that I can look at it daily.

From this point of view, I think that I would like the works of 3 women artists on my wall in my room - Bianca Mengotti, Carlotta Castelletti and Monia Sansa. At an intellectual and aesthetic level, I also like the works of Marco Eracli and Mara Zanchetta.

Among the art-works presented here, which ones do you like most? Write in the comments below.

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Mantra Photo Exhibition in Schio

During a recent evening walk, I visited a photo-exhibition at the beautiful Toaldi-Capra palace of Schio. The exhibition was titled Nel Mantra (In the Mantra) and it had stills from a short film made by a film-maker from Schio, Rocco Zaupa.

Photo-Exhibition

Many of the images in the exhibition were blurred, expressing motions and emotions, though from them it was difficult to make a rational idea about the film. At the beginning of the exhibition, a note explained that the underlying theme of the exhibition (and the film) was repetition, and thus the title, Nel Mantra, because a Mantra has to be repeated many times.

The images were from a short film about a film-shooting, in which a director named Gerda is directing two actresses. He makes them do the same scene again and again, till they are too tired to go on. This day of repetitions creates a kind of deep relationship between the director Gerda and one of the actresses called Anna.

Rocco Zaupa and Aurora Verducci

I had a brief interaction with Rocco and Aurora, two members of the team associated with the short film and this exhibition.

Rocco is from Schio, while Aurora is from Tuscany. They both met at the film school in Lucca (Tuscany).

They explained the basic idea of the film about repetition and how they can lead to the discovery of deeper meanings and connections. The images presented in the exhibition have been created from the videos they had shot for the film.

Comments

I can understand the idea of repetitions, by making you think and rethink of something, can lead you to see it from different angles and understand it better. It is a tiny idea and I am curious to see how they have translated this into an understanding of the relationship between two persons.

I think that even a decade ago, making a short-film on such a "tiny-sliver" of an idea and making an exhibition out of stills made from the video, would have been much more difficult, but today the technology helps to simplify everything and it is possible to take a wisp or a whisper, and make it germinate into something more substantial.

However, I am not sure if Mantra is the right word to express the act of repetitions leading to deeper or a different understanding, since Mantras are more about the sounds and not so much about meanings.

Credits

Photography & Post-Production: Federica Galiero

Graphics & Poster: Aurora Verducci

Photo Backstage: Federico di Malta

Video footage: Same Studio

Sound designer: Leonardo Santini

Text & Direction: Rocco Zaupa

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Knocking-Down Alice Munro

The latest issue of Outlook magazine (11 Aug.2024) in India is about the Nobel prize winner Canadian writer Alice Munro (1931-2024) controversy. After Munro's death in May this year, her daughter disclosed that when she was 9 years old, she was sexually abused by her step-father. She said that she had told it to her mother, but her mother had refused to leave her husband. This disclosure has led to the campaign which says that Munro was a terrible person and her works should be boycotted.

The magazine has different persons sharing their views about this controversy. I would also like to share a couple of my ideas about this theme.

Views in Outlook Magazine

Most views published in the magazine, take nuanced positions. For example:

Jai Arjun Singh's view is that everyone contains multitudes and asks, "is it so hard to believe that people who have done heinous things in one context are also capable - over a long lifetime - of producing thoughtful, moving art and doing it honestly?"

In the Munro controversy, the heinous act was by the step-father. I feel that painting Munro as a kind of accomplice is going too far. However, suppose Munro was a terrible person, does it mean that we erase her work? I don't think so.

Jerry Pinto mentions the universality of human flaws and says about Picasso, "He is flawed. I accept that because I am flawed. I accept his art as coming from a flawed source because there are only flawed sources." I like and understand this viewpoint better.

I think that people who point fingers at others, are often those who have their own skeletons in their cupboards.

My Views

I also think that same events can be interpreted differently. For example, some things can be seen as harmless fun or not so serious by one person and a mortal offence by another. I remember film actress Rakhi's interview about her divorce some decades ago, in which she mentioned about her husband Gulzaar's saheb's cruelty "because he wanted only freshly made warm chapati and threw it away if it was not to his satisfaction". I know some men and women who also prefer their chapatis warm, but fortunately, they don't need to divorce their spouses, they just need to get a new cook for their kitchens.

You think that I am trivialising the issue? How about ragging? Some 20 years ago, I had written a post about my ragging experiences in the medical college in 1972. I had happy memories of that experience while another of my classmates had left the college. Some even commit suicide due to ragging. BTW, my post about that ragging experience, is one of the most popular posts on this blog and it triggers a large number of persons, who continue to read it, in spite of explicit warnings about its content.

In Munro's defence, I can also say that her daughter had told about it to her mother, almost 15 years after the event. Thinking of "multitudes" inside us, and may be Munro had had some very good memories in all those years with her husband, including of many acts of kindness and empathy, and she was conflicted in her mind. I can't judge her reasons. Since Munro is dead, and can't defend herself, in the end, her daughter's is just one side of a complex story.

Finally, if we start boycotting due to all the stories about the well-known writers, artists, actors etc., we won't have any films, books and works of art left for us to admire and engage with. Maybe this is because, famous creative people undergo a lot of pressure to cross the boundaries?

Since we live in the age of aggressive self-promotion based media-celebrities, I guess many persons outraging about Munro are only looking for attention through their outrageous comments. Unfortunately, click-bait hungry portals & social media are only too happy to oblige them.

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Art from the Fascism Era

The art and architecture are influenced by the dominating ideologies of their times. The rise of fascist ideologies in Italy during 1920s and 30s, had influenced the art and architecture from that period.

Recently, I had an opportunity to visit an exhibition on this theme at MART museum in Rovereto (Italy). The image below shows the sculpture of a man at the exhibition entrance.

In this post, I want to share about some exhibits from this exhibition. There were hundreds of art-works including paintings, sculptures, posters, photographs and models in this exhibition. For convenience, I have sub-divided a few examples of those in 3 groups - influence of fascism on the arts, representations of Mussolini and the end of fascism.

You can click on the images of this post for a bigger view.

Art from the Fascist Era or the Fascist Art?

Some artists believe in the ideology and thus, their creative expressions are aligned with the ideals of that era. Other artists may not believe in the ideology but can be forced to follow the dominant dictates of that ideology.

In the second group, sometimes, artists' dissent against the dominant ideology may be expressed in hidden symbols or clever subversions of ideas. The image below shows posters about fascism from 1920s & 30s.

Fascist Ideology & Its Artistic Influences

Fascism means glorification of masculine virtues - tall, broad, strong, powerful and patriotic alpha males with square jaws, leading their families, communities and the country, to compete against, fight and dominate the men from other communities and countries, for the glory of their fatherland.

Women play a supporting role in this process, they are supposed to reproduce children, look after their families and communities, and admire their handsome men. (The image below has a sculpture of the war veteran and fascist leader Carlo Delacroix by the sculptor Antonio G. Santagata in 1928)

I had no idea about the impact of fascist ideology on the arts and thus, I was very curious to visit this exhibition. My friend Giorgio loves art and when he proposed that we go to Rovereto to see it, I immediately agreed.

The term "Fascism" comes from Fascia or Fascio, a covering or a band. For example, fascias can be the cords tying together bundles of grain-stalks. For this reason, often paintings from that era show bundles of grain-stalks tied together by the fascia. This term expressed the strength of being united.  Image below has a painting from this exhibition, showing bundles of grain-stalks.

Evolution of Fascism in Italy

The ideas of "Revolutionary Fascism" were launched after the end of second world war by the 34 years old Benito Mussolini around 1917. Five years later, in 1922, the king of Italy appointed the 39 years old Mussolini as the prime minister.

In 1925, Giovanni Gentile, the philosopher and the ideologue of fascism, launched the Manifesto of Revolutionary Fascism at Palazzo Fava in Bologna (that building today hosts a medieval museum).

Initially, the fascist ideology developed as secular, but over the 1930s, Mussolini developed closer links with the Catholic church. During 1930s, Mussolini also became closer to Hitler and Nazism, and the racial segregation laws targeting the Jews were enacted in 1938.

In 1943, the arrival of British-American allied forces in south Italy led to German occupation of remaining Italy and the conclusion of the fascism. Partisans killed Giovanni Gentile in 1944 and Mussolini was lynched in April 1945.

With this introduction, now let me come to some examples of the exhibits.

Artworks in the Exhibition: Influence of Fascism on Art During 1920s and 1930s

Fascist ideals of women and children were expressed through creation of specific movements with their black costumes, songs and parades. For example, the children were organised in the Ballila groups for physical and moral education. Ceramic statues from 1930s from the ceramic factories of Nove-Bassano and the statues by Elena Konig, shown below, represent these.

Designs made by the artist Achille Funi during 1930s for making frescoes in official buildings also show the influence of fascism (image below). Funi is credited with the Novecento art movement during 1920s and for bringing back fresco mural-paintings into vogue.

Mario Sironi was another artist, part of the Novecento movement, who worked on fresco mural-paintings. The image below, shows his works "the horse-rider" from 1934, illustrating men and horses, another favourite theme of fascism.

Italian futurism art movement had started in early 20th century, before the first world war. During late 1920s and 1930s, a second futurism-art movement came around, which was heavily influenced by fascism. The two images below show some examples of this phase of futurism-art.

 

This was the biggest section of the exhibition.

Artworks in the Exhibition: Art About Benito Mussolini

Mussolini as the supreme leader of fascism, was often represented in paintings and sculpture. As an icon of fascism, these representations often showed him as fighter and warrior, with square jaws, frowning brows and a scowl or even injured in a fist fight. Below you can see some examples of these icons.

Artworks in the Exhibition: Art About the End of Fascism

In 1943, the arrival of allied forces in south Italy signalled the end of  fascism and artists could finally express themselves openly. For example, the 1943 painting by Mino Maccari shows the end awaiting Mussolini.

In 1945, at the end of the second world war, Benito Mussolini was lynched and angry mobs had brought down his statues and broken them. One such bust of Mussolini, which had been created by sculptor Adolf Wildt in 1923, and was broken with hammers by an angry mob in 1945, illustrates that time (image below).

India in the Exhibition

The fascism-art exhibition also had a 1942 painting by Italian artist Adalberto Libera titled "The Ataturk Monument in Ankara", shown in the image below. It has a column of fire in the middle and round walls all around with the Sanskrit words "Vande Matram" written in Roman alphabet.

Libera is known primarily as an architect. I don't think that the painting shows the Ataturk monument, rather it shows India's independence struggle against the British, which might have been seen positively by the fascist regime. I don't know if Libera had by mistake added the Sanskrit words to his Ataturk painting or if the exhibition organisers have mistaken the painting-title.

In Conclusion

This exhibition on art from the fascism era was curated by the well-known Italian art historian, critic and author Vittorio Sgarbi. He is known for his abusive and polemical TV-show persona and I don't like watching him, but I liked the way he has curated this exhibition.

At the end I am haunted by the broken statue of Mussolini. It reminded me of images of statues of Lenin and Saddam Hussein being brought down by mobs. In this sense, history keeps on repeating itself - sooner or later, the dictators and the strongmen become prisoners of their own images and are unable to confront the reality in time, to stop themselves from the final inevitable showdown.

Let me conclude this post with another image from this exhibition - a 1939 painting by Cesare Maggi titled "Listening to the Duce's radio broadcast".

I think that the above painting is about the declaration of Italy joining Germany in the war. Most persons in the painting look sombre and are dressed in black, the colour of the fascists. I am intrigued by the man in the red shirt standing in the centre, who has military medals pinned on his shirt. Was that red colour used by the artist to give a strong focal point in the painting or was it a sign towards the role played by Italian partisans in the war, who had fought against the Mussolini regime? The hill in the background seems like San Luca in Bologna, which had a large network of partisans.

May be Maggi, usually known as an artist close to the fascist regime, was actually trying to express his dissent through this painting?

Perhaps a similar argument can be made about some of the busts of Mussolini, which seem to caricature a strongman persona?

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Power of Our Geographies

Guided by self-interest, all countries seek power, leverage and resources. In this, a country's geography is like a prison, because its limits and constraints are difficult to overcome. This is the basic premise of Tim Marshall as he looks at the geographies, histories and challenges of ten areas of the world in his 2015 book, "Prisoners of Geography - Ten Maps that tell Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics". 

I have just finished reading this book and I found its conclusions very harsh, sometimes even heart-breaking. At the same time, I found it stimulating and thought-provoking.

We live in utopian times - even with the wars and climate change and loss of bio-diversity, I somehow feel that with our new knowledge, understandings and innovations, the humanity will find a way to a better tomorrow. I dream that our future world will be guided by ideals of peace, brotherhood and mutual collaboration between countries and peoples. Marshall says that this utopian dream may remain just a dream, because countries and peoples are guided by their self-interests and they can't escape their geographies.

Geographical Areas Covered in the Book

The book looks at geographies and histories of ten areas - Russia, China, USA, Western Europe, Africa, Middle East, India & Pakistan, Korea & Japan, Latin America and the Arctic. For each of these areas, Marshall provides an overview of its geographical layout and history, especially the evolution of its relationships with its neighbours.

He says that the relationships between countries are dominated by the ancient ideas of suspicion, self-interest and gaining control over resources. Countries and their governments might talk of brotherhood and collaboration but they never forget those ancient ideas and when needed, go to war over them.

For example, in the part about the geography of Russia, he writes:

"Poland represents a relatively narrow corridor into which Russia could drive its armed forces if necessary and thus prevent an enemy from advancing towards Moscow. But from this point the wedge begins to broaden; by the time you get to Russia’s borders it is over 2,000 miles wide, and is flat all the way to Moscow and beyond ... You might think that no one is intent on invading Russia, but that is not how the Russians see it, and with good reason. In the past 500 years they have been invaded several times from the west."

There are different wars in the world-history, described in Marshall's book, that I was unaware of, and thus it was very instructive to read this book. For example, I was not aware of the history of the Kurds. Here is a part about it, in the section on the Middle East (p. 256):

"Kurdistan is not a sovereign recognised state but it has many of the trappings of one, and current events in the Middle East only add to the probability that there will be a Kurdistan in name and in international law. The questions are: what shape will it be? And how will Syria, Turkey and Iran react if their Kurdish regions attempt to be part of it and try to create a contiguous Kurdistan with access to the Mediterranean?

There will be another problem: unity among the Kurds. Iraqi Kurdistan has long been divided between two rival families. Syria’s Kurds are trying to create a statelet they call Rojava ... If Kurdistan does become an internationally recognised state then the shape of Iraq will change. That assumes there will be an Iraq. There may not be."

His descriptions of the fissures in the Middle East are the most hard-hitting and pessimist part of the book. For example, he writes about Islamism and Palestinian refugees (p. 259), "Such changes to a country’s demographics can cause serious problems, and nowhere more so than in Lebanon." Another example, is in the following extract about the future of the "Arab Spring":

"In the Middle East power does indeed flow from the barrel of a gun. Some good citizens of Misrata in Libya may want to develop a liberal democratic party, some might even want to campaign for gay rights; but their choice will be limited if the local de facto power shoots liberal democrats and gays. Iraq is a case in point: a democracy in name only, far from liberal, and a place where people are routinely murdered for being homosexual.

The second phase of the Arab uprising is well into its stride. This is the complex internal struggle within societies where religious beliefs, social mores, tribal links and guns are currently far more powerful forces than ‘Western’ ideals of equality, freedom of expression and universal suffrage. The Arab countries are beset by prejudices, indeed hatreds of which the average Westerner knows so little that they tend not to believe them even if they are laid out in print before their eyes. We are aware of our own prejudices, which are legion, but often seem to turn a blind eye to those in the Middle East.

The routine expression of hatred for others is so common in the Arab world that it barely draws comment other than from the region’s often Western-educated liberal minority who have limited access to the platform of mass media."

In Conclusion

The book ends on a pessimistic note and is brutal about our prospects for a more peaceful world, at least in the immediate future:

"As the twenty-first century progresses, the geographical factors that have helped determine our history will mostly continue to determine our future: a century from now, Russia will still be looking anxiously westward across what will remain flatland. India and China will still be separated by the Himalayas. They may eventually come into conflict with each other, but if that does happen, then geography will determine the nature of the fight ... Of course geography does not dictate the course of all events. Great ideas and great leaders are part of the push and pull of history. But they must all operate within the confines of geography. The leaders of Bangladesh might dream of preventing the waters from flooding up the Bay of Bengal, but they know that 80 per cent of the country is on a flood plain and cannot be moved. It is a point the Scandinavian and English leader King Canute made to his sycophantic courtiers in the eleventh century, when ordering the waves to retreat: nature, or God, was greater than any man. In Bangladesh all that can be done is to react to the realities of nature: build more flood defences, and hope that the computer modelling of rising waters due to global warming is overstated."

This book was written in 2015 and some of its worries about possible conflicts (such as Russia - Ukraine, Israel - Palestine, north and south Sudan, D.R. of Congo) have become realities.

If you are interested in geopolitics and want a deeper understanding about our past, on-going and potential future conflicts and challenges, do read this book.

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